When Push Comes To Shove, Everyone Loses

General Sales
When Push Comes To Shove, Everyone Loses
By Roy Chitwood
Sep 29, 2003, 17:13

(Please
Note: On October 2nd Roy Chitwood will be presenting a one hour
teleseminar on creating a sales system to close more sales. Most
sales people lack a specific plan and system to guide them through
the sales process. As a result, they “wing it” and experience
ups and downs in their sales career. Attend Roy’s teleseminar,
and discover how you can close more sales! http://www.salesvault.com/products_teleseminars.htm)

During sluggish business periods, many companies
try to jump-start sales activity by "pushing" specific
products/services on their customers.

Many routinely do so through monthly or quarterly
sales contests where a specific product/service is promoted, and
sales teams and individual salespeople are enticed to "push"
it with incentives such as bonuses and trips for the team and salesperson
with the highest volume.

Consequently, management is often "pushing"
salespeople to get the product in front of customers despite the
reservations of many salespeople that, often times, it's not what
the customer needs most (or even at all in some instances).

Having overseen hundreds of salespeople while holding
various sales executive positions, I know that "pushing"
your salespeople is often good. However, I've also learned that
"pushing" the exact same product/service on all of your
customers is not. And one specific example of this misguided tactic
jumps to mind.

Sometime back, a consultant who regularly works
with us told me of a client of his whose business focused on winning
and supplying government contracts with maintenance supplies. And
each month, this company conducted a "product of the month"
contest where field salespeople were required to show and push the
specified product during every sales call, without exception.

One September, the particular product being pushed
was de-icing pellets used to keep walkways clear of snow and ice
during bad weather. The consultant recalls that a salesperson from
this company pushed the pellets to a buyer at an installation in
the desert southwest that rarely had snowfall.

Nonetheless, this buyer ordered dozens of units
because his own budget was of the "use it or lose it"
variety. That is, the following year's budget was determined by
the amount spent during the current year, and any leftover budget
would be considered excess and unnecessary.

With the government's fiscal year ending in October,
the buyer felt that he needed to spend the remaining budget so as
to secure a similar level of funding for the following year. And
he honestly intended to make the best use of the order by sending
it to a unit at an installation that regularly ordered the product
in trade for a product his unit routinely used.

Unfortunately for the salesperson and his company,
a general audit identified this needless expenditure and led to
a full-blown audit during which every product this company had supplied
to this unit was scrutinized. All of the orders were apparently
legitimate, except for the last order of de-icing pellets, which
was deemed an absolute misuse of funds.

Despite the lack of integrity by this salesperson
and his company on just this one occasion, the auditing body concluded
that the company was untrustworthy and thus stripped it of its approved
vendor status at all of the branch's installations. This was a tremendous
blow to the company's revenue as it annually provided millions of
dollars worth of products to many of this military branch's installations.

As the above example glaringly reveals, the strategy
of pushing a one-size-fits-all product/service can prove terribly
costly in some situations, but at the least, is flawed in almost
all others for several reasons.

First, as we teach our clients, a salesperson makes
a sales call for only one reason: to be of service to his or her
customer. If a customer or prospective customer doesn't have a need
for your company's product/service or it's not the best solution
for his needs, you have no right as an ethical salesperson to push
him toward a sale.

Second, each customer has her own unique needs and
circumstances that should be handled accordingly. There's no such
thing as a one-size-fits-all product/service. But that's exactly
what a company is expecting its salespeople to present to their
customers when it pushes a specific product/service upon them during
a "product of the month" promotion, or something similar.

Third, and most importantly, a professional salesperson
spends a great deal of time, energy and effort in building trusting,
loyal and lasting relationships with her customers. More than simply
acting as a provider, as the relationships develop, the professional
salesperson becomes a trusted business counselor - and partner -
to her clients.

As with the example the consultant shared with me,
all of this good can be quickly undone if a company mandates that
its salespeople push the exact same product/service to all of its
customers.

This is due to the potential undermining and erosion
of trust that may occur within a customer once he learns the specific
product/service doesn't best meet his needs. This is neither wise
nor professional.

Rather than employing such tactics to quickly spike
sales, companies would be better served to train their salespeople
to learn how to detect the true needs of customers on the most individual
level possible, and then to meet them.

Risking long-term profits and customer relationships
for short-term gains like immediate sales and revenue may be tempting,
but is very unwise. It's like playing a game of customer roulette,
where a salesperson's commissions and a company's profits can increase
in the here and now, but cease to exist in the near future. It's
a game I recommend companies don't play.

About The Author: Roy Chitwood is an author and
consultant on sales and motivation and is president of Max Sacks
International in Seattle. Web site: http://www.maxsacks.com

Roy Chitwood has been a leader his entire career:
First in the insurance industry, and since 1976 as President of
Max Sacks International (MSI), the firm that has been teaching sales
professionals to sell more effectively since 1958.

You can purchase Roy’s book World Class
Selling or his audiotape series The Guaranteed Close
by clicking on the “Products” button at http://www.salesvault.com/products_books.htm.